One For The Ages. 

If you have been following us on social media, you’ll know how special this event was. 

We had 35 students come from all over Europe (Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, & Finland) to study with 9 different teachers from all across the world (Cuba, Brasil, UK, Germany, Bavaria) about all things drumming.

The weekend began with Jas Kayser playing a monstrous pocket along to one of Lenny Kravitz’s most iconic songs then showing her approach to the clave and afrobeat grooves. Followed by Dany Kufner destroying our eardrums on a 5 piece kit, breaking down his concept when creating an effective practice routine, and tailoring his approach to each participant.

We then finished Day 1 with a unifying drum circle led by the one-and-only Dirk Erchinger with all the participants and Jas Kayser once again, who were playing congas, shakers, cowbells, and anything else we could find. 

After all that we knew this weekend was going to be different.

After a 45 minute pad warm-up, Mario Meruna woke us all the f*ck up with his blazing chops and unwavering passion for the drums. He led a great clinic on odd-groupings showing us all how we can get the most out of the simple rudiments we practice.

The Cuban drumming sensation Jay Kalo pulled the participants onto the stage to show us all how to build more musical, grooving phrases and when soloing how to keep the audience dancing the entire time. Our very own Stephan Genze brought his quartet to the 1970s punk venue ORWOhaus for a killin’ performance, and a quick  jam session with all the participants.

Day 3 started with a groove-training workshop by Dirk Erchinger & Martin Lillich, who showed the participants how to improve their pocket by playing some iconic Earth, Wind, and Fire grooves, which you can also find on our YouTube channel here. Brazilian’s finest Renato Lellis gave a deeply passionate and empowering clinic. He brought the participants onto the stage to improve their Baion ostinatos and tore the house down with his deeply emotional performances.

We then travelled to Kreuzberg, right in the heart of Berlin, for an evening with Gerwin Eisenhauer, who emulated electronic beats on acoustic drums, completely altered our perspective to drumming, and then partied into the night with his fully improvised electronic duo ‘BOOOM!’. 

Normally by this point in the week everyone is exhausted. Information overload, a mild hangover from Saturday night, and the prospect of travelling home that evening. Not this year.

Every drummer woke us fresh as a daisy and was ready to study with our headline act, Jojo Mayer.

Jojo is a genius, philosopher, and true artist. He didn’t touch the drums for the first 45 minutes of his clinic. He grabbed the mic and broke down his conceptual approach to music, provoking deeply reflective conversations from the participants before demonstrating his reflections on the kit.

“You need to own it” when talking about how far to take something you practiced.

“Be your own mixing engineer” when working on dynamics.

“I could never play as precise as a machine but I created the illusion that I could” when sharing his own frustrations with emulating electronic music.

It was everything you would want from a Jojo Mayer clinic. Two hours of philosophical debate from a Guru, a foot technique crash-course, an analysis of backbeat placement, and a demonstration of the future of drumming: Generative Technology. Jojo closed the weekend in the perfect fashion.

We want to take a second to thank all the sponsors for supporting us with the event too. These events aren’t cheap to put on and we are so fortunate to be part of a community that has incredible companies who help us bring top-tier education to drummers for a very reasonable price. A massive thank you goes out to Yamaha Drums, Rohema, Mister Muff, Tama, Sonor, Sabian Cymbals, Meinl Cymbals, Paiste Cymbals Evans Drumheads, and Remo Drumheads!

It is such an honour to host this event each year with an incredible group of drummers. Four days of passionate nerding-out, building a loving community, and a celebration to the art of drumming. This is what we love about being drummers.

Stay tuned for the BDD26. Exciting info coming very soon.